Monster Island is an owner-operated studio that people come to when they care about reaching their goals. For some it's about the ideal environment to be creative and record their music exactly as they imagined, but most people come here because they want the sound that has lead to unsigned bands getting record deals, platinum and gold sales, #1 hits on the radio and Grammy Awards.

Monster Island's recording credits span from mainstream pop hits like Avril Lavigne's Girlfriend and Katy Perry's I Kissed A Girl to R&B like Chaka Khan, to the modern rock of Boys Like Girls, Cobra Starship and Coheed and Cambria, to indie artists like The Takeover UK and even bluegrass, jazz and international artists who've traveled to NYC from Europe and Australia specifically to work here.

As a studio, Monster Island is unique in that it's one of the few places left in Manhattan where you can get great drum sounds and track a full band to two inch tape while isolating the sounds from all of the musicians. We record to two inch analog tape and ProTools 10 HD through Radar Nyquist Converters in a Bob Hodas-tuned control room, and have more than 24 channels of Neve, Chandler, Pendulum tube mic pres, compressors and EQs. Mixing is a hybrid of analog and digital that's unique in the computer assisted recall of the analog EQs.

Many of the recording artists who come here have the budget and experience to go anywhere in the world want, but we have extensive experience making the smallest budgets work. Follow the link on rates vs cost for more information.

Monster Island's owner, Mike Caffrey, has made a living producing and engineering recordings in NYC since 1995.

His specialty as a producer is helping recording artists articulate their vision, and then translating it into and actual finished, completed recording. He is an progressive thinker about the current and future business of recording and is always interested in the most unique prjects and approaches.

After graduating from Berklee College of Music as a guitar player, he started Monster Island in a small room in the Meat Packing District in 1995. Moved to the current location in 2000, and has worked on multiple #1, gold, platinum and Grammy winning recordings in this studio.

He has toured Europe as part of Richard Muller's "all-star superband" with Omar Hakim, Will Lee, Hiram Bullock and Clifford Carter.

He's a Senior Contributor and conference moderator/panelist for Tape Op Magazine.

He leads The Number One Sons a performance team with Steven Wolf and Jack Daley, who specialize in live rhythm section recordings with both US and international clients.